


Mamihlapinatapai

by Lsusanna



Category: Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: AU, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bad coping mechanisms, Captain Swan - Freeform, Character Death, F/M, Feelings, Genderbend, Genderswap, Introspection, Issues, Killian/the Jolly Roger counts as an OTP, Liam Jones - Freeform, Other characters mentioned - Freeform, Piracy, Redemption, Rule 63, Self-Hatred, The Jolly Roger, True Love, True Love's Kiss, Why Did I Write This?: a novel that will one day probably be literally written by me, fem!Killian, headcanon Killian backstory, maybe? - Freeform, other characters rule 63'd as well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-17
Updated: 2015-07-17
Packaged: 2018-04-09 18:28:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4359653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lsusanna/pseuds/Lsusanna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>True Love is the most powerful magic of all. And even the least of magics have an irresistible, inexorable pull. It's horrible, it's a hell, it's home. </p><p>OR</p><p>Killian Jones and Eric Swan find True Love. It isn't that simple.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mamihlapinatapai

**Author's Note:**

> So, after season 3, episode 5, this goes au, but this fic is more feeling-y than plot-y, so it's fine.
> 
>  
> 
> On names of the Rule 63'd:
> 
> Killian is still Killian, because as far as my research showed it's a unisex name.  
> Emma is Eric.  
> Neal is Nan.  
> Regina is Richard  
> Robin is still Robin  
> Milah is Michael  
> August is Augusta  
> Graham is Grace
> 
> Also, I acted under the assumption that Killian Jones and Davy Jones are related. Because, I mean, come ON, it would be awesome.

_"No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become. No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. There are no maps of the change. You just come out the other side. Or you don’t."_

**_-Steven King_ **

 

 

Before there was Captain Hook, there was Killian Jones, and before there was Killian Jones there was Killian.

 

No one knows this. They reap what they sow; they don’t ask. No one suffers from this but Killian—because she thinks of herself still as Killian—but she has her pride. (If nothing else, if nothing else, if nothing bloody else, oh, she has her pride.)

 

But it doesn’t matter, not anymore, because all that matters is the present, and in the present, Killian Jones is a pirate. The title is used the same way as ‘Captain’ is by men who believe women cannot sail, that same spitting tone, or else flat truth, and she runs them through just the same.

 

She is a pirate, and she steals and pillages, and just because her form makes her better than other pirates, doesn’t mean she’s better, and it doesn’t make her _good_. She is a pirate, and she steals Michael—just because he all but begs to come willingly doesn’t mean she doesn’t—loses Michael, and from there, from there, oh, it’s down, down, down.

 

She is a pirate when she loses—hah, when she _gives away_ —Bae, when she seeks revenge, when she does countless other things, and she never stops, and she never goes anywhere but down, down, down.

 

(Why it bothers her, then, when the Prince tells her his son would never deign to fall for a pirate, she will never know, and she will never wonder, but she will spend the night lying on the floor of Neverland thinking of Michael’s sketches under a floorboard in her cabin in a waterproof skin, and she will drink, but not as much as she might, because her flask is getting lighter. When she and Charming next get into a row, she hits back harder than she needs to and harder than she maybe ought, and that more than once, and she has no remorse to give Snow White, only a smile, because, after all, she is a _pirate_ , yes? And what did they expect?)

 

 

 

******

 

 

 

But he will deign, apparently, because apparently she has something Eric likes, and it’s good, and it’s satisfying, and she doesn’t wonder if he’s doing this to forget about Bae and the days she counted on the wall of her cave, or how she looked falling through the portal, because it isn’t meant to be anything serious, anything more than what it is, and what it is is something just above nothing and far below meaningful. (She wonders why she’s doing it at all, but why do pirates do anything they do?)

 

But then Nan finds them, and they find Henry, and they all find a way home, and Ruby leads Tinker Bell away to have a slice of pie, and Leroy and his band are crowding around their Prince and Princess, and Killian very nearly finds herself assuming she will shortly be in the throes of some such segue into the next phase of what is to come, with someone, but she sees Eric and Nan on their knees around Henry, and she sees Richard standing at the end of the pier looking like he’s choking on his tongue, and she takes her cue from him and goes back to the Roger.

 

How everyone’s boots are always so much muddier than hers, she will never know, but they always are.

 

And, Killian thinks, as she scrubs the deck on her hands and knees, her hair in her eyes and mouth because she didn’t take the time to even tie it back—this, she thinks, is why she doesn’t like people on her ship. _This_ always happens.

 

This _always_ happens.

 

 

 

******

 

 

 

“Do you love her?” she asks, and Eric opens his mouth and heaves his shoulders in a sigh, which always means he’s going to say nothing, even though he always thinks it means he’s searching for something to say.

 

“Look, we, you and I…” he begins, ever so eloquently.

 

She laughs. “I’ll not be a point on a love triangle, Love, so let’s just say it now, shall we?”

 

Eric sighs, the position of his lips pushing the air up to shake his bangs.

 

“You love her,” Killian says again, with more conviction, because, well, he never will, will he?

 

“Killian…” he begins, looking up at her, and his irises say _what we had was good, so good_ , but the key word is ‘was’, and that means the way the skin around his eyes softens says _but I’m sorry_.

 

“It’s fine,” she says to the _I’m sorry_. “She’s Henry’s mother, and your—whatever she is, but you’ve still all got a…family unit. Which is quite quaint, actually, and I wish you the best of luck, I really do.”

 

“Killian—” he says, as she begins to turn.

 

“I really do,” she says again, and she knows he knows she’s being sincere because the last thing she sees before she turns around is Eric closing his mouth.

 

(“A person unwilling to fight for what they want deserves what they get,” Killian tells Bae, or Nan, or whatever she is to the world now. “And you have. I’ll not stand in the way of that. So…congratulations. I hope you find what you’re after.” 

 

Her reasons are noble, yes, but there is a chance she does not think of that that’s only what she’s telling herself. But, either way, a person unwilling to fight for what they want deserves what they get, and Killian Jones fought for nothing. There is a stain on the Roger’s deck, a new one, brown and oblong, and it’s either from Henry or Eric, and she vows to never let anyone on her bloody ship ever again.)

 

(And Nan watches the Captain’s retreating back with narrowed eyes even after she turns the corner and disappears behind one of Storybrook’s buildings, because it can’t be that easy, Happy Endings are not so easily won, and the last thing she’s going to do now is start trusting anything.)

 

 

 

******

 

 

 

And Happy Endings are _not_ so easily won, and peace is never a lasting thing in Storybrook, and Killian is part of the team of heroes, now, whether she wants to be or not. And so there are more portals, and more of the Enchanted Forest, and Richard meets an outlaw queen who, after some mutual soul-searching and forgiveness, starts to publically and unashamedly kisses him like he’s Hers and finally free, and it’s written plain as day on his face that he doesn’t know what to do with that.

 

The trip back is not as pleasant, and when they are all thrown on to the dirt in the woods back in Maine, Roland is crying and Little John is trying to console him because his mother is coughing like a seal barks and bleeding from the mouth. And Eric is saying the word ‘no’ in a never-ending chant of varying cadences, because Nan isn’t breathing at all.

 

Snow tells him he knows what to do, with the faith that is always in her eyes, and so Eric leans down and kisses her, kisses her again, but nothing happens, and it doesn’t work, and the scene becomes this:

 

Robin is hugging Roland and feeling him all over for bruises or worse; Richard is sitting against a tree after having healed her, looking like he just avoided the world’s end; John is watching him like an appraising older brother watches an in-law; David is watching Nan like he’s processing the actual tragedy that just happened; Snow is watching Nan like she’s processing the tragedy that’s just befallen her son; and Eric is watching Nan and not seeing her, thinking, no doubt, of what to tell Henry. And Killian, as pirates generally do, survives mostly unscathed; watches Nan and sees Bae.

 

(“I wasn’t enough,” Eric will say, later, slumped on the stairs and staring at the floor, and Mary Margret, who is Snow White, who is Mom, will tell him to shush and that it wasn’t his fault, and she’ll sit down next to him and thread her fingers through his hair, and he will let her.)

 

 

 

******

 

 

 

At the funeral, Belle says something, and Snow says something, and Eric says nothing, and Henry cries.

 

And after that, nothing happens for a very long time. Monsters and magic and other near-death experiences, but nothing in the way of romance, not Killian’s or Eric’s, anyway. After a long time, Killian looks back and realizes she and Eric are friends, good friends, and she likes that, because the last friend she had was Liam.

 

During one of these bouts of monsters and magic, it ends with Eric being the one on the floor, in a cave in the forest in Maine, a spell in his lungs and death in his limbs. David straddles him, trying to re-start his heart, bending down to lend his son breath he cannot take when he isn’t yelling out to Richard, “Isn’t there anything you can do?”

 

“I…I’m sorry, I—no. There isn’t,” he replies, and he’s remorseful.

 

Killian watches half-leaning against the stone wall, the word rising in her body being ‘no’, and she realizes that this is what her father meant, when he said that people who don’t fight for what they want deserve what they get.

 

She turns away from Eric and Charming and Snow, who has her hands over her mouth, silent tears streaming out of wide eyes, and finds Richard watching her. It’s an appraisal, open and unadulterated—and then just like that, in a subtle turn of silent phrase in his irises, it’s a dare, and almost a threat; because he’ll not be the one to tell Henry he only has one father again, as well as no mother, but that’s reason enough.

 

And Killian, Killian knows what he’s saying. And so she thinks about it, and she moves. She leans down like she doing a one-armed push up, and she kisses him once, and oh _gosh_ , she knows it’s worked before Eric makes a noise that’s half-gasp and half-wheeze and lacking in grace, and when he does, she pushes off his body and leaves the cave.

 

As she strides through the woods, a jounce in her steps that stems from her hips, there’s a smile that’s centered more in her cheekbones than her lips, a dark smile, and a fire in her eyes—not a cheerful, bubbling light, but the kind that crackles and consumes. Its classification can be explained away by the fact that she is, after all, Captain Hook. And the fire’s there at all because she _bloody knew it_.

 

(If she had cared, Killian would have noticed that she didn’t need to push David out of the way first because he had noticed that Snow had stopped gasping behind her hands like she’d forgotten how to breathe, and was watching something behind him with that wide-eyed, searching, half-crazed look she gets when she’s found something to latch onto when she’s desperate. He turned and saw it was Hook, who was being watched by Richard and was watching Eric, and he wondered what they all meant and thought maybe he knew, and nevertheless was climbing off his son.)

 

(When Richard goes home, Robin is stepping off the last of the stairs, smiling that smile Roland makes her have, radiant and so much else, and he assumes she just put him to bed. He shuts the door behind him, and she turns to him, bringing the smile with her. “Hello,” she says, and damn, he loves it when she smiles at him. She keeps it there long enough that her eyes narrow slightly, and the smile is more curled as opposed to wide, and it becomes less Roland’s smile and more Richard’s, which has more of an adult theme.

 

She makes her way to the kitchen, and recent events are making him think about what he has, and doesn’t deserve, and yet still has, and so he intercepts her halfway there, and he kisses her in a way that he hopes says what he isn’t sure he knows the words to say himself, and his thumb presses into the lion tattooed on her arm, and dear gosh, it’s more right than it should be allowed to be.)

 

 

 

******

 

 

 

“It isn’t that simple.”

 

“I… Okay, I’m admittedly not an authority on this, but I’m pretty sure True Love is self-explanatory,” Erik says, following her onto the pier.

 

“Yes, but, see, Love, I don’t want it,” Killian says.

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

“It means that True Love doesn’t mean Happily Ever After.”

 

“Alright, fine, maybe it doesn’t, but one thing I know about this True Love thing, is that if we both didn’t love each other, then it wouldn’t have worked. And if we both love each other, technically about as much as two people _can_ , then why—”

 

“Because it isn’t that simple,” Killian interrupts. “I don’t do things like this—I don’t _want_ things like this! The only reason I started this in the first place, back on Neverland, was because I was looking for a bit of fun! I wasn’t looking for this!”

 

“If that were true, I would be dead now!” Eric counters.

 

“It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not! Really, Swan, where do you see this going? I believe the colloquialism around here has something to do with picket fences—is that what you really want?”

 

“No, but— Well why the hell not? Why can’t we at least try? What’s so damn bad about Happy Endings?” Eric demands.

 

“Nothing, but I don’t want one! It’s a two way street, and I’m not driving!” Killian yells.

 

“Why? What are you so afraid of?”

 

“I’m not _afraid_ , Swan. I never _get_ afraid,” she spits, and then she breaches the cloaking spell around the Roger.

 

(Eric stands on the pier, seething a bit and wondering if he should follow her, wondering if he should leave, wondering many things. He’s confused, more than anything, because he knows she’s lying, he knows, but he can’t figure out _why_. He decides to find out, but instead of his foot descending on the invisible gangplank, it lands on empty air; he loses his balance and falls into the cold water, because the Roger and it’s Captain are already yards and yards away.)

 

Killian stays on the water all night, steering into uncharted waters—for her, anyway—by stars she doesn’t know well enough to sail by. She goes by her compass, mostly, and doesn’t stray as far as she’d like, because she won’t get herself lost in another world, at least not without proper stores of provisions.

 

She isn’t straying as far as she’d like, because she’d like to sail on into oblivion, find out if this world really is as round as everyone says it is, and either keep on going till she goes all the way round or fall off the edge. Killian considers dropping anchor and spending the rest of the night sitting against the mast with a bottle, but she doesn’t, just keeps sailing in long looping circles. She wills herself to stop thinking of Bae, but she can’t, because the port and starboard diagram is still there in front of her, staring her in the face through the jagged scar she’d left it. She doesn’t want to think of Liam, but this whole ship is Liam, every creak and groan of wood, every flutter of canvas sails, and every scrape of rope over the deck—every everything. She wants to stop thinking about Michael, about the smell of him that was never quite taken over by salt and sea, about the pearl he’d pried out of a clam and that she still wears around her neck, alongside the shard of garnet that had once been round and smooth and set in silver and her mother’s, brought back by her father, when he still came back to them, before fishing became piracy and he set the precedent Killian would spend her whole life meeting and exceeding. 

 

She wills herself to cry, bent over the wheel, her hair a curtain over her face, tousled by the wind. But she can’t. She can’t, because she’s told herself not to, time and time again, because her crew was loyal, but not good, and they wouldn’t have boarded enemy ships under the command of a woman if they didn’t think her made of sterner stuff than they. Because when she lost her hand, she gave herself two days to be back onboard the Roger, and so it took two days to find a healer to burn away whatever kept bleeding, for him to deaden the appendage enough for the hook to be able to be put in. (It took two hours to settle what needed to be settled about Michael.) Because she has not cried since she was a girl, and now she’s a woman, and now she’s Captain bloody Hook, and she stops willing herself to cry, eventually, because she shouldn’t want to.

 

(So it goes.)

 

 

 

******

 

 

 

Prince Charming comes first. The argument circles, till she ends it, standing too close and saying, “But you’ve forgotten, Love; you said you didn’t want a pirate in the family.” She says it in the right tone, and with the right kind of eye contact, and when she finishes, her bottom lip drags through the air close enough that it’s almost dragging over his. And it brings his simmering anger to a boil, and he stops just short of saying _you’re right, I don’t_ , but it’s in his eyes.

 

Snow is more difficult to get rid of. “Can I ask, why?” she says, as if that’s all she wants to know, and after she has an answer she’ll let it all be.

 

“You can, but I’d say it’s none of your bloody business,” Killian replies.

 

“I’m the reason that Eric’s had such a hard time finding happiness, and it’s my job to fix that, now, so yeah, it is,” she replies.

 

“It’s not just his happiness.”

 

“You’re right, it isn’t—so what I’m wondering, is why you care so little about yours?”

 

It isn’t an argument, this time, because it’s Snow White, but it ends with Killian wondering why everyone has to come aboard her ship, and it ends with an empty bottle of rum and Killian curled on the floor of her cabin.

 

 

 

******

 

 

 

“You can’t just keep running!”

 

“I’m not _running_.”

 

“Yes you are!”

 

“Oh, and what would you know of running?” Killian asks.

 

“Because I’ve always done it, and I know what it does, and we can’t keep doing it, we can’t!” Eric yells.

 

“ _Why not_?”

 

“Why do you want to? You can’t want to!”

 

“Yes I do!” Killian returns. “And it’s not running!”

 

“ _No you don’t_! I know you don’t! You’re lying, you’re always lying, why do you keep _lying_?”

 

“That’s what pirates do, Love,” Killian replies, too savagely to be truly sarcastic.

 

“Is that what this is about? Is that what this is about? Dammit, you don’t have to deserve it! We don’t always have to _deserve_ everything, we shouldn’t have to deserve happiness! I’m sick of it! Why can’t I just want it, why can’t I just have it? Why can’t we just be happy? I’m sick of this! I’m sick of earning happiness!”

 

“It’s not about deserving, it’s about wanting, and I don’t,” Killian says, and her voice is too thick and shakes too much for her to trust it to say much more.

 

“ _Yes_ , you _do._ And why, why don’t you want it? Is it because Captain Hook wouldn’t want it? Because I’m not talking about that, Killian, I’m talking about you, about Killian Jones, and I’ve known you long enough to know they’re not the same thing! _Killian_ , please.”

 

“Have you ever considered,” she says, after a moment, “That maybe it’s you, Swan, I have the problem with?”

 

She paces the deck, like a prowling animal. Paces, and watches Eric, who still stands on the pier, and doesn’t will him to come aboard with all the passion and love and longing in her lover’s heart—no, she _dares_ him, with all the rage in her dark heart, so she can have the pleasure of pushing him into the water herself this time.

 

But he doesn’t. She sees him considering it, more than once, but he doesn’t do more than stand there, and she knows it’s half because of what she said and half because he doesn’t know if the ship is still there, and he doesn’t want to fall into the sea again. (Self-preservation will be the death of them both.)

 

When the night is at its blackest, he leaves. When he does, Killian stops pacing, stands near the helm and watches him retreat till she can’t see him anymore.

 

She considers setting sail. She considers feeling triumphant, because she wanted him to leave, and now he finally has. She considers going down to the hold and getting another bottle. She considers throwing up over the side of the ship. She considers just going to her cabin and sleeping, because she’s suddenly so, so tired.  But she does none of those things, and instead stands, stands where she is. She stays till the sun comes up.

 

 

 

******

 

 

 

“Why, what a pleasant surprise,” Killian exclaims, as Richard steps off the gangplank and onto the deck. “What brings you here on such a fine afternoon, Your Majesty?” But then she straightens and releases the rigging, and she gets a better look at his face, and her pleasant and therefore sarcastic expression drops. “Oh bloody hell—you know, if there’s anyone in this town who hasn’t _earned_ the right to lecture me, it’s you,” Killian says, pointing her hook at Richard.

 

“I know,” he says, slightly wicked smile widening, “I’m not here for that.” He strolls along the Roger for a few paces like it’s his, stops, and lays a hand on the edge of the deck. “You know, they always think there’s a difference,” he says, speaking of David and Snow and the rest, “between good and evil; heroes and villains. But there isn’t. We all have it all in us, all the time. There isn’t a difference; there’s a choice. And you’ve made yours. So I’m not here to lecture you, Hook, I’m here to thank you.”

 

“For what?” Killian asks, eyeing him suspiciously, because he’s still leaning against the Roger’s deck, and he’s still _looking_ at her, and why the hell doesn’t anyone ever ask if they can come aboard before they do? Then she could refuse them, and she wouldn’t have to talk to any of them.

 

“I’ve often wondered if Greg Mendell was right. And now I have my answer. It appears that _villains_ really don’t get Happy Endings. Good afternoon, _Captain_ ,” he finishes, still smiling, and as he leaves she watches him go, because that last wasn’t a dig at her gender, or piracy, or choices; it was a dig at _her_ , at Killian, and she can count on one hand the number of people who have ever done that.

 

 

 

******

 

 

 

There is surprisingly little to do in Storybrook, given that it is one of, if not the, only place in this realm with magic. Killian doesn’t miss the life-threatening run-ins, but, well. She wouldn’t have stayed a pirate all these years, regardless of becoming one, if she didn’t like adventure.

 

But, in this world, adventures on the high seas aren’t possible for her, because leaving the town would be…perilous, and tedious. So when nothing is going on in Storybrook, she gets…well, bored. Actually, maybe something is going on. Killian wouldn’t know. She’s abdicated her post in the inner circle. And she hasn’t even gone into town, either, not if she can help it, not since she noticed Widow Lucas, who was bringing in the sign bearing the specials, watching her with narrowed, judging eyes as she passed the diner on her way back to the docks. (There is a possibility that such occurrences aren’t as wide-spread or frequent as Killian thinks they are, but she isn’t going to wait to find out.) And, when a ship isn’t in use, it requires much less maintenance, so there’s only so much she can do on the Roger.

 

At one point during the seemingly endless weeks since Richard came onboard (seven weeks, eleven days since Eric didn’t), Killian decides to scrub the general ick off the Roger’s hull, so she ties a rope round her waist and hangs off the sides of her ship for too long; when she starts, the sunlight is still as cold and dim as the air that leaves her breath solid and misty in front of her face, the sun itself still nowhere to be seen, and when she stops there isn’t enough light to see by, she’s wetter than she’s been in quite some time, and there’s a linear, unbroken sore running across her body from the rope.

 

She sleeps like the dead, wakes up exhausted and with muscles that burn when she moves, and never gets around to getting up. That night, she dreams of Liam, and he asks her why she did this to him. _Did what_ , she asks. _This_ , he says, and then she’s falling and screaming and landing hard and never hitting the ground, inky blackness all around, and then Liam looks at her with hollow eyes, corpse eyes, wistful eyes, and he says—he says, _why did you do this?_ When she wakes, it’s sudden and she’s winded, and it’s already dawn. She sits up in bed, damp with sweat and still sore all over, and her mother’s necklace of once-precious stone sits on the shelf of her collarbone, broken and splintered, as it has been ever since she began to wear it. Michael’s pearl hangs lifeless and leaden, almost between her breasts, and it’s cold, like Killian has no body heat left for it to absorb.

 

She still has no intention of doing anything except nothing, but she _is_ awake, in that her heart is still thumping against her throat and her chest aches appropriately empty in its absence, and so she spends the day drinking, and wonders how it will affect the headache she woke up with, suspiciously hangover-like, even though she’d done nothing except roll over occasionally under her sheets the day before.

 

Hours later, she thinks she hears someone, decides she’s drunker than she thinks she is, and raises her bottle to her lips when she hears the voice again.

 

“Hello?” someone calls faintly, if Killian listens hard enough. “Is anyone there?”

 

Killian comes up on deck, stumbling, because one of her feet is still not properly in the boot she’d hastily shoved on. She can hear the voice clearly now, still calling. “Hello-o,” it yells, sounding male and young, and bloody hell, she knows that voice. “Can I come up? Please?”

 

“I—uh…” Killian starts, finally shoving her heel down into her boot and shaking errant clumps of hair from her face and back into the chaotic black mess around her shoulders. She considers letting him think no one’s on board, or refusing him entry on purpose, before yelling, “Yes!”

 

Henry comes bobbing into view, running up the gangplank, before he jumps on deck. “Hi,” he says, looping his scarf back around his neck, and when he looks up at her, he adds, “Wait, were you asleep?”

 

“I— No, actually,” Killian replies, which is technically true.

 

“Oh, good, then I didn’t wake you.” His eyes flick over her once or twice, and he’s _Henry_ , so it’s purely one-sided when Killian thinks she should have perhaps done more than put boots on before coming on deck. “Anyway. I’m here to talk to you about Eric.”

 

“Yes, I assumed as much,” Killian says, voice too hoarse for her liking.

 

“So?” Henry asks, inclining his head expectantly, “Why aren’t you two, like, together?”

 

Killian sighs. “Haven’t you and Eric discussed this?”

 

“Yeah, but he isn’t saying much, so I figured I’d go to the other source,” Henry replies, moving to helm and sitting down matter-of-factly on the raised platform it sits upon, which says he isn’t here for a short conversation. Then he looks up at her, and clearly expects her to wax eloquent on the whole affair.

 

Killian sighs, dragging her hand through her hair, which had somehow found its way back into her eyes. “We’re just…not. Together,” she says, waiving her hook half-heartedly through the air, because the winter sun is high and cold and bright, and her head hurts again, and she doesn’t want to do this right now.

 

“Why not?”

 

“We’re just…not.”

 

“But why not?” Henry says again, clearly not satisfied with her answers. “You’re his True Love, he’s yours!”

 

“It’s not that simple, Henry,” Killian sighs, eyes closed. Her head hurts.

 

“Yes, it is. You were meant to be together.”

 

“True Love doesn’t always mean Happily Ever After,” she says tiredly.

 

“Yes, it does,” Henry says, getting up again. “It means you found your happiness. It means you and Eric were _meant to be together_!”

 

“Henry… Just because people are meant to be together doesn’t mean they will be.”

 

“…You _have_ to know how dumb that sounds,” Henry says, like she’s being excessively simple. “Neither of you have died, or been cursed, or anything! David and Mary Margret _were_ cursed, and they still found each other! That’s what True Love is!”

 

“But Henry, I’m not a Nolan!” Killian says, leaning down to his height, because she needs him to understand. “I don’t know how to find people like you all do!”

 

“But you don’t need to find each other! You’re both here, you were both already brought together! There’s nothing stopping you!”

 

“True Love isn’t a…blanket rule. It has more to do with the people involved. It’s not that simple,” Killian finishes in a tenuous voice, straightening and breaking eye contact.

 

“Yes it is,” she hears Henry say, then pauses. “…He misses you,” he says, and Heaven help her, she starts to listen with her body and her mind as well as her ears. “He’s sad, and he doesn’t smile as much. Like when my mom died. And you miss him too. I can tell. You’re sad too. You’re both afraid, and I don’t know _why_. This isn’t scary. It’s happiness.”

 

Killian stares at the deck, and her mouth stays open for a handful of seconds, and then she closes it, can feel her lips thinning into a line, and she feels three hundred, and she has nothing to say.

 

“You’re both being stupid,” Henry mutters, and Killian hears his footfalls on wood, till she doesn’t, and he’s gone.

 

She has too much in her to go back below deck, so she stays above, watching the horizon, wind cooling her face and pushing her hair from her neck. She checks and alters the rigging, going about tying and re-tying knots, but her fingers are as thick as her tongue, clumsy and cold and numb, slipping off the ropes. It’s frustrating, and Killian ends up toying with a knot she’s known how to tie for centuries, over and over and over again, and she can never get it right. She could blame it on the weather, or the soreness, but there’s a fuzz in her aching head, and she feel like she can’t see clearly, for all she has no problems looking, and she hates it when she can’t function, she _hates_ it, and bloody hell, why did she ever even _start_ drinking?

 

Killian reties the knot again, and it slips, and so do her fingers, and she makes an enraged noise that stems from between her clenched teeth. The rope is flung from her hands, and she strides to about the middle of the deck, breathing heavily, because _dammit_.

 

She can do nothing but stand there, feeling centuries old in a way she rarely ever does, and maybe it wasn’t just the rum, because she feels things around her, memories and emotions and _everything_ , like she’s drowning and being buffeted by a strong wind, rain like needles in her skin. And then she can’t stand there anymore, and with a sound very like a whimper she lurches down the gangplank.

 

It’s dusk when she weaves her way through Storybrook, the sun gone but the world still bright in a grey sort of way. She moves to knock on his door with her hook, hesitates, and does it instead with her hand. Eric clearly isn’t expecting her when he opens the door, and he doesn’t say anything for a very long time, and neither does she.

 

“It’s too late, isn’t it?” Killian says with a watery, quirked smile, leading with what she’d seen in his face.

 

“I just…” Eric begins. “I just don’t know if I can…you know?” he says, and he doesn’t say _, I don’t know if I can go to another funeral_ , and he doesn’t say, _but I stuck my neck out there anyway, and you cut my head off_. “Not now.”

 

“Yeah,” Killian says, still smiling, broader and now wistful. “I do know.”

 

He looks remorseful. Killian imagines she nearly looks amused.

 

“Goodbye, then.”

 

“Goodbye,” Eric replies. Self-preservation will be the death of them both. It’s what’s kept them alive this long, but this kind of preservation, preservation of the soul, is more like embalming, and it always begins after death.

 

She turns and goes, strides down the street grinning, because she’s genuinely amused. She feels like she’s dying a little, but this is what she wanted, she wanted to not have to navigate waters full of rocks—and they would have been, because she is a scorpion and she doesn’t change—and so she made it so she wouldn’t have to, and now she doesn’t, and so this is what she wanted, and it’s irony.

 

And she’s smiling because this is so painfully in-character—she is a scorpion, and she does not change. She breathes and exhales uroboros, like ink, like ash, but she isn’t just eating her own tail, oh no, she’s biting and tearing and destroying, and so is everyone she’s ever known. And she’ll keep doing it, keep tearing and destroying, like she’s always done, and she’ll keep getting smaller and smaller, and one day she’ll be ground to dust.

 

(“So how is everything?” Archie—Jiminy, maybe, he doesn’t know anymore—asks over milkshakes and French fries at Granny’s. Henry isn’t a patient, not anymore, but is still a friend.

 

“Alright,” Henry replies, taking a sip of his chocolate-flavored beverage.

 

“How are things with Eric and Captain Jones doing?” he asks, because he’s still a shrink at heart.

 

“Still nothing,” Henry replies morosely.

 

“Oh. I thought—”

 

“What?”

 

“Oh, nothing,” Archie says, and reminds himself not to read too much into the Captain smiling next time. “Could you pass the ketchup?”)

 

 

 

******

 

 

 

(“Hey, how are you?” Eric says as Henry closes the door behind him, because he’d spend the last two nights with Richard, and he hasn’t seen him much at all. “How was school?”

 

“School was fine,” Henry replies, in a way that says he’s fuming.

 

“Are you okay? Did something happen?” Eric asks, concerned, putting down the dish he’d been washing and drying his hands with a dish towel.

 

“Everything's fine,” he replies, not looking at Eric.

 

“Well, are you sure? Because you look upset.” A possibility occurs to Eric, born of precedents, so he adds, “Did—did something happen with Richard, did—”

 

“Nothing happened with Dad, Dad!” Henry replies hostilely, forgetting to specify between his fathers the way he does when he’s emotional. “He’s the one who convinced me to come back here in the first place!”

 

“Convinced you, what—wait, are you angry with _me_?”

 

“Yeah, I am!”

 

“I— _why_?” Henry looks at him like he’s gone brain-dead, and then Eric gets it. “No, Henry—”

 

“No. We need to talk about this!” Henry says, taking no more notice of Eric’s warning tones than he usually does.

 

“We already talked about this—”

 

“No, you haven’t!” Henry retorts.

 

“Henry, this doesn’t even concern you, this doesn’t concern anybody but—”

 

“Of course it concerns me! It’s about you, and your happiness!”

 

Eric would normally find that really great, Henry’s caring, but now it’s just cumbersome. “Henry…”

 

“You’re not fighting for her!” Henry accuses.

 

“She doesn’t want to be fought for,” Eric retorts, voice laughing sarcastically.

 

“Yes she does!”

 

“Oh, and how would _you_ know?” Eric asks, a little too venomously in tone and facial expression, because he hates to treat Henry like a kid, because he’s older than he actually is, but he doesn’t want to do _this_ , _again_.

 

“I heard you talking to Mary Margret,” Henry says, obviously picking up on Eric’s tone. “And because I just _know_. You’re afraid.”

 

“I am _not_ —”

 

“You’re afraid,” Henry says, talking over him yet again, “just like you always are. You’re always afraid of good things! You were afraid when you found me, when you found your parents, when you saved Storybrook, when you found Mom, and I don’t know _why_ —”

 

“Hey!” Eric interjects, because he _is_ higher up in the hierarchy, here.

 

“ _Why_ aren’t you _fighting_ for this?” Henry asks, pleading this time.

 

“Because she doesn’t _want_ —”

 

“Yes she _does_!”

 

“ _How_ do you _know_ th—wait. Wait—did you go _down_ there? Did you go to the docks, did you _talk_ to her?”

 

“Yeah,” Henry says unapologetically.

 

“Henry I _told_ you _not_ to!”

 

“That’s not the point, Dad! The point is—”

 

“I’m not fighting for this, because she doesn’t want it. It’s a two way street! If you talked to her, you’d know that.”

 

“Well I talked to her, and of course she wants it! She wants it as much as you do!”

 

“I _don’t_ —”

 

“You’re only saying that because she did!” Henry accuses. “You’re both miserable. You’re miserable, she’s miserable, and I don’t know why you both don’t just be together! You’re each other’s True Love!”

 

“It’s not that simple, Henry.”

 

“You know, you both keep saying that, but it’s not an answer.” Henry steps forward, gesticulating earnestly. “You _need_ to fight for this, Dad!”

 

“Well—she isn’t fighting for it!” Eric exclaims, painfully aware of sounding like he’s four.

 

“Can’t you just be the bigger person? The brave one? You both want it, you _know_ you both want it; one of you just needs to just…push the other one a little. Why can’t it just be you?”

 

“Because… Because, Henry, I don’t know if I want it,” Eric admits.

 

“How could you not want it? You’ve always liked her. And it’s True—”

 

“True Love, I know.” Eric sighs through his nose, leaning his back against the counter.

 

“How could you not believe in True Love?” Henry asks, apparently familiar enough with Eric’s skepticism by now to know to take the conversation in that direction. “You see it with your parents, like, every day. It made you. It’s magic is inside you. You saved me with it. Killian saved you with it.”

 

 _I couldn’t save Nan with it_ , Eric thinks, but it has no place in this conversation, it just is. “I know, kid, I know. It just…”

 

“What?”

 

“Gosh, Henry, you know, I just. It doesn’t—”

 

“ _What_?”

 

“I don’t know, kid, I don’t— I just…it just doesn’t feel—”

 

“ _What_?” Henry asks for the third time, more insistent than ever.

 

“Everyone dies, okay!” Eric says. “Everyone I’m with, always dies. I don’t want that to happen.”

 

“So, what, you’re being selfless?” Henry deadpans skeptically.

 

“No, I just—” Eric swallows. “Henry, I just don’t what you to have to go through what you went through with your mom ever again, okay?”

 

“You mean _you_ don’t want to go through what you went through with Mom again,” Henry corrects. “And with Mom again the time she went through the portal. And with Augusta. And with Sheriff Grace. And your parents.”

 

“Yeah, okay, okay,” Eric says, but Henry continues.

 

 “And Mom the first time. And with foster parents—”

 

“Yeah, alright, I get it.”

 

“—and probably a lot of other people you haven’t told me about,” Henry finishes.

 

“Alright, fine, okay?” Eric relents exasperatedly. “I’ll—I’ll don my armor, and go…riding down to the docks, on a white horse. Okay?”

 

“Okay,” Henry replies.

 

“ _Okay_.”)

 

 

 

******

 

 

 

She tries to familiarize herself with the stars here. She knows some, but not enough, and while true mastery can only come with sailing by them, among the reflections they leave in the water that make one feel as if one is sailing among inky space, she can do what she can.

 

Killian has always loved the stars. Her father taught Liam to know them by sight and name, and how to sail by them, before he left. If she’d know that when she and Liam had stood on the pier and watched the Dutchman pull into open sea would be the last time she would see the ship or her father, she would’ve… She doesn’t know what. If she would have known well in advance, maybe she would have convinced him to stay. At least she would have made more of an effort to commit things to memory—the time he’d carried her around the ship, telling her how this and that worked, how they hauled in the fish, how to steer the ship (Killian hadn’t realized when she’d drawn the port and starboard diagram for Bae that her father had done the same for her, when she was too little to see over the wheel, but she remembered after, and maybe that’s why she’d scratched it out).

 

At least, at the very least, she would have asked him _why_ , because she never knew, she still doesn’t know; he’d been happy, the precious few times he’d been home, and maybe she was just too young to see what was wrong, but she still doesn’t remember anything—he’d just _left_. (What she’d done was better, then, because she hadn’t had anyone to leave.)  She never saw him again—heard the tales, though, of Davy Jones, scourge of the seven seas, and she always assumed he’d found a way to enchant the Dutchman; or, if _all_ the tales were true, let his piracy get him in over his head, and was cursed. (She used to wonder, sometimes, if he ever heard of her; if he was proud or disappointed. Wondered what he’d think of the Roger, he who was so particular about rigging.)

 

Anyway. Killian loved the stars, when she was little; would ask her mother which one was the Pegasus, when she would sit by the window when she was supposed to be in bed, and she’d tell her, always obliging, no matter the hour. And after Killian knew, she would confirm the question; yes, that’s the Pegasus.

 

“And he brings Daddy home?” she’d ask.

 

“Yes dear,” her mother would answer, even though when she grew up she knew the Pegasus would never come into play when charting such a course.

 

After her father taught Liam and wasn’t there to teach Killian, he did. She remembers standing in front of the house, late at night when the sky was clear, Liam kneeling behind her, warm against her back. His arms would come out alongside her, one pointing at the sky, and the other helping her adjust and aim an old, battered telescope, and later an old, battered sextant.

 

(After her father left, and Killian was old enough for her legs to be gangly, she would still sit on the window seat and look at the sky; would wonder why the Pegasus had forsaken them. “Come to bed, dear,” her mother would say.)

 

(After her mother died, she knelt in the yard and cried, looking up at the Pegasus with blurry vision. Liam came eventually, putting a blanket around her shoulders and kneeling next to her. They stayed outside, that night, because their mother’s body was still in the house. There was no one else there, just as there had been no doctor to save her, because no one takes pity on prostitutes.)

 

(After their mother died and before Liam was old enough to join the Navy and accept their money, he always swore abandonment if Killian ever tried doing what their mother did.)

 

(The morning after their mother left them, before the landlord came under the assumption she had finally died—because he wasn’t _so_ heartless as to evict the whore’s and old Davy’s children before she was dead—she and Liam went through all the drawers and cupboards, haphazardly and lightning-quick, so they could take what they needed before the people who ransacked the houses of the recently deceased caught them with things that were no longer theirs. In a false-bottom of a jewelry box, Killian found the fragments of the garnet necklace her mother had worn every day, till her father left, which she had then ripped off and bashed against the paving stones as she sobbed and screamed, kneeling in the yard. Killian had watched from the doorway at age seven. Liam had eventually come trudging back down the path that led to the docks; his voice had been hoarse for days, she had assumed from yelling after the Dutchman from the pier.)

 

Killian’s realized all this for what it is, she thinks, as she studies stars that are as much hers as those in Neverland; her cyclical revenge against herself, because she’s never really forgiven herself for her own choices, her own villainy. But she’s too good a survivor to meet punishment, and she wouldn’t admit to deserving it if she did, so she makes it for herself. She makes her own way that things should be.

 

But more than that, more than that—it’s because she wouldn’t forgive herself for bringing Eric down with her. As she did Liam, as she definitely did Michael. She may abhor her choices, but it doesn’t stop her from making them, and all choices, like magic, come with a price, and just because she’s found a way to finagle out of it doesn’t mean she’s yet found a way of taking people with her. Everyone Killian’s ever loved has gotten hurt, and it’s her fault. She’s toxic. A poison. She corrupts, like rust; takes what was once shining and strong and corrodes it till it flakes away, into the air.

 

She could say she could just make better choices, but she hasn’t yet been able to, not really, and she won’t take the chance, not with this, not with Eric. Because True Love _is_ special, _is_ set apart from everything else, and Killian can’t taint and ruin that too, she could never forgive herself if she did, she’d die. (Which would be no more than she deserves, but as always, she would take everything she holds dear down with her, and she won’t, she won’t.)

 

Killian wants to know what happened to that girl, the one she used to be. Where did she go? Her life has been long, longer than it should have been, and people change, over the years. But this doesn’t feel like change; it feels like erasure. No change is that drastic. (But maybe she just hadn’t noticed, because three hundred years is a long time for a gradual change to occur, and she is only now trying to notice.)

 

Maybe, maybe she knows what happened. And she does. Pieces of her have died, over the years, the most important ones with the people she’s loved. It’s the answer, but it’s no excuse, because it would still be better to say that she’s killed pieces of herself, over the years; long, slow suicide (after all, evil isn’t born, it’s made).

 

Killian wants to know what happened to that girl, where she went, maybe because she wants to know if she can get her back, but it’s a moot point, because what happened was that she grew up; and if Pan taught her anything, it’s that there’s no coming back from that.

 

She could cry, now, she could, she has the sticky, heavy emptiness, the feeling of implosion, clinging to the inside of her ribcage, twisting what’s within. Her eyes are filled with moisture, but not enough for tears to fall. And she tries, she does. Puts away the telescope, bracing her arms shoulder-width apart on the fold-out table in front of her as she focuses—but she can’t cry.

 

Killian doesn’t know what that makes her.

 

(She does.)

 

 

 

******

 

 

 

“I know what you’re doing.”

 

Killian turns around; sees Eric standing on the sidewalk, feet shoulder-width apart and shoulders straight, because he doesn’t often look for fights but is always ready for them.

 

(She will never know the deliberation and courage taken to follow and speak to her, after he’d seen her crossing the street.)

 

She doesn’t say anything, just turns around and faces him, two or three meters away, shrugging the sack of gallon jugs of water off her shoulder and wishing, for the fifth time that evening, for more than one hand. She waits.

 

“I know what you did,” Eric says, slightly breathless, taking a few steps forward so as to lower his volume. “I’ve done it. You wanted to push me away hard enough that I wouldn’t come back.”

 

Killian doesn’t deny it, and doesn’t confirm it, just watches Eric and wills herself to keep the composure she can’t see herself losing, not when the drafty emptiness surrounding her darkened, rotten heart stands between it and the outside world.

 

Eric watches her back, sadly, and breathing like he has the same sense of implosion in his chest. “Why am I letting you?” he asks, like he genuinely wants to know and genuinely doesn’t.

 

“Why did I do it at all?” Killian replies softly, sadly smiling just a little, because this is where and what they are now. She says it as both an answer and a question of her own.

 

(“Did you talk to her yet?” Henry asks, for the fourth time this week, and dammit, Eric has to be vaguer about the promises he makes that kid.

 

“Yeah,” Eric says, shrugging off his coat.

 

“Well?” he prompts.

 

“I don’t know,” Eric replies.

 

“What do you mean you don’t know, didn’t—”

 

“I mean I don’t know, alright? Just—just not now, Henry, okay?”)

 

(“Are we letting them do this?” Snow whispers, as Eric and Henry retreat to their respective corners.

 

“Oh, they’ll get over it, they always do,” David says. “They’ll go get cocoa at Granny’s or something.”

 

“No, I mean Eric and Killian,” Snow clarifies, piling leftovers into a Tupperware.

 

“Well… What are we supposed to do? We can’t exactly just march down to the docks and mash their faces together.”

 

“No, but…”

 

“This is their thing, Mary Margret. He and Hook have to figure it out themselves,” says David.

 

“Yeah, I guess,” says Snow, and then her spatula stills, and she stares at him. “You still don’t like her, do you?”

 

“What do you mean?” David asks.

 

“You know what I meant.”

 

“Well…” David lowers his voice, as the loft’s floorboards creak, “I gotta say, I may have preferred the daughter of the dark one.”

 

“David!”

 

“What? H—How fond of her are you right now?”

 

“Well, Eric isn’t blameless either, here,” Mary Margret whispers. “And it doesn’t matter what we think, she’s his True Love.”

 

“…He couldn’t have just picked someone else?” David mutters down to the lasagna he’s Tupperwareing.

 

“It doesn’t work that way. And they have enough problems without us adding to them, we have to stay…neutral.”

 

“Alright, fine. I won’t say anything.” David half-turns to put a filled Tupperware into the fridge, and then stops, because she’s still looking at him. “What? What do you want me to do, Snow, I thought we were being neutral?”

 

“I know,” she groans, too loudly, so she drops her voice; “I know. I just—this is what I meant. Should we be doing something? Is this the kind of thing we do something about?”

 

“We have.”

 

“But then do we give up now?”

 

“Alright, fine. Say we _do_ do something. What do you want _me_ to do?” David asks, bringing the conversation back to the aforementioned look. “Do you want me to talk to her? Because I did that already, and she made damn Bedroom Eyes at me.”

 

“I _know_ , but— David, do we just let them do this?”

 

“…I don’t know.”)

 

 

 

******

 

 

 

“Hey,” calls a voice. Killian turns, and sees the Prince standing on the gangplank, by the deck. “You mind?”

 

“Be my guest,” Killian replies, and then turns back to leaning against the prow, watching the water move and glint under the afternoon sun.

 

“So,” David says, standing next to her. “What’re we doing?”

 

“Why are you here?” Killian asks, turning her head to look at him.

 

“Why do you think?”

 

“To try to convince me to give in to True Love, most likely.”

 

“Nope,” he says. “I’d like a straight answer. I think you owe me one.”

 

Killian inclines her head in agreement.

 

“So?” David asks. “Why the distance?”

 

“Do you love him?” Killian asks, because she’s tired, and she does owe them all this. “Do you love your son?”

 

“Of course.”

 

Killian nods. “Then trust me when I say the further away he is from me, the better,” she says. “Not that you trust me; but that’s my point.”

 

David nods contemplatively. Then, “I don’t like you.”

 

“Thanks, Love.”

 

“But I do trust you.”

 

“Well that’s stupid,” Killian replies, turning so that her whole body faces the Prince, the prow on her left, and he does likewise. “The last person who did that got a knife in the back. Or hook, as it were.”

 

“No,” David corrects, “the last people who trusted you live in an apartment on Main Street that’s getting smaller by the day. If Snow and I don’t move out before Henry ends up with that puppy he’s pushing for, someone’s going on mood stabilizers.”

 

“Look, what’s your point—”

 

“My point is, that we gave Richard…more chances than I can count. And he earned very few of them. But everything turned out alright in the end. More than alright. And, my point is, you’ve earned more than you think you have. Because that’s what this is about, isn’t it? Earning happiness. Well, you don’t need to.”

 

“I think I’ve heard that somewhere,” Killian says, smiling slightly.

 

“I’m being serious,” David says. “Here— Do you want it? True Love, Happy Endings?”

 

“It doesn’t matter—”

 

“It does matter. So do you?”

 

“You can’t…just—”

 

“So yes, then,” The Prince says over her reply. “And you’re giving it up? You want your Happy Ending so badly your…your teeth hurt, even, and you can’t see straight, but you’re passing it up anyway, because you think he’ll be better off without you. Did I get it right?”

 

Killian would have wondered if there was ever a time he gave up Mary Margret, and if that was what made his description so accurate, but all she does is open her mouth to answer and never close it, despite not saying anything, which is answer enough.

 

“Then congratulations on your moment of personal growth. I really hope you read into it.” David says. “And I’ve seen what happens when people try to deny True Love. It’s the most powerful magic there is. Everyone involved is…miserable, and…everything is wrong.” David turns to walk to the gangplank, but stops and turns halfway there. “And one other thing, Killian,” he says. “It’s not just _your_ Happy Ending.” 

 

 

 

******

 

 

 

“Hey!” calls an angry voice Killian knows is Eric’s, followed by quick, heavy footfalls, and she has time to half-turn away from the mast before he’s landed on the deck. “I love you,” he says, like it’s an accusation, and she wonders if he ran here, because he sounds out of breath. “ _Obviously_. And you love me, or else that kiss wouldn’t have worked. So…when did that stop being enough?”

 

She starts to shake her head, but he doesn’t give her time to say anything.

 

“No. No, I didn’t—I don’t care, I don’t care, I didn’t come here to…talk about this, all we’ve been doing, is _talking_ about this, even when were not… _actively_ talking, but I don’t… I love you. I _love_ you.”

 

“Please don’t,” she says quietly and matter-of-factly, looking at the deck, because he keeps stepping closer, she doesn’t know if consciously or not, because she doesn’t know if she’s consciously making an effort to walk backwards to the stern, but she is.

 

“No, no, I—I love you. I _love_ you, Killian, I love you, _I love you_.”

 

“ _Please_ _don’t_ ,” Killian pleads, both hand and hook behind her, braced against the edge of the deck, and Eric shuts his mouth as he hears her change in inflection, change in meaning.

 

He looks confused and quite possibly despairing, like he’s going to argue _why_ , but he’s also confused and frustrated, and it isn’t just _her_ Happy Ending, and so he searches for words or something else for a minute, bewildered, and then he strides abruptly to the gangplank and off the ship.

 

Half of Killian is relieved, and half of her is screaming for him to stay, because damn, _damn_ , she loves him too. She loves him. She loves him, and in knowing that, she's afraid, she's scared, so hopelessly, helplessly scared. 

 

She leans against the stern, breathing deeply and staring out at the shadows clinging to the waves, because the moon is behind the clouds, and she looks up at the sky, but there are no stars tonight, and there is no Pegasus in this realm, and so she sinks down onto the deck. She cries, sobs till she’s nearly wailing.

 

 

 

******

 

 

 

Eric opens his door, looking appropriately rumpled for someone who wasn’t sleeping at the deepest, blackest part of the night, and he takes her in with glances, all disheveled curls and leather and tear-stained face, and he opens his mouth to say something, but she doesn’t give him time.

 

“I love you,” she says in a rush, because _damn_ , it’s probably too late, “and I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I love you, I—I do, I love you, I love you, I—”

 

He holds her face in his hands, and they stumble into the apartment, and he closes the door behind them. She’s breathing like she might start crying again, that almost-hyperventilation, but she doesn’t, just keeps saying it, ‘I love you’, because she can’t stop, she just can’t stop, and the air in her lungs isn’t enough for all the words she’s saying, and she barely takes the time to breathe, just keeps saying it. “I love you, I love you, Eric, I love you.”

 

And he holds her face in his hands as they sway like waltzing drunks, caressing her cheeks and her jaw and her neck, tangling his fingers in her hair, and she does the same, frenzied, shaking fingers running over his face, his chest, curling around his clothes. It makes her feel small, his holding her face between his fingers, cradling her head with his palms, lowering his so their foreheads touch and they can both hear the other breathe, and they don’t kiss, though their lips drag together from time to time, and that might be because Killian won’t stop talking, but it’s also because none of this is sexual, or romantic. It’s just that he’s here, and she’s with him.

 

“I love you.”

 

“I love you,” he answers, his nose ghosting over hers.

 

(In the morning, Mary Margret and David will drop Henry off from spending the night at the little house they’re in the process of moving into, and they will find Eric and Killian on the floor of the living room, sleeping curled around each other, and they will back out quietly. Henry will noiselessly pump a fist in the air out in the hallway, Mary Margret will beam, and David will put his arm around her shoulders and ruffle his grandson’s hair.)

 

 

 

******

 

 

 

“Can I see it?” Eric asks, and Killian obliges from where she sits on his lap in his bedroom, removing first the hook and then its setting. He holds her stump of an arm in gentle fingers, examines it like a jeweler examines diamonds. It looks worse than it could have, for the methods used to quickly seal the wound.

 

“Why do I do these things for you?” Killian murmurs, her head against his collarbone, looking at her arm.

 

“I don’t know,” he replies, and with her head on his chest she can hear the hum of his voice, and he presses his lips against the middle of her forearm, before nosing her face up and her gaze away and kissing her.

 

It’s a trend. He’s kissed the scar the dark one left on her cheek, and the scar that apparently accumulated from people sticking their hands in her chest so many times, even if they never took her heart. He’s kissed the scars on her back left by a whip, from the occasion the Roger was caught in the act. His fingers have stumbled with clasps to remove the pearl and garnet necklaces, as they stood on the threshold of his shower. They all have stories, and the ones he doesn’t know, he asks for, and she tells him, and so far, she hasn’t lied.

 

Eric has no scars for Killian to discover, to kiss, but she does thread her fingers through his hair as he tells his own stories, and when he finishes, she kisses him.

 

Killian tells him about her mother, how it bothers her she and Liam hadn’t the time to give her a proper burial, or one at all. Tells him the burials at sea bother her too, and she wishes she could have done something for Liam. Days later he leads her through the cemetery, to the place where the headstones of Mary Margret and David’s parents, and Bae, and Johanna rest, and he stops in front of the two leftmost slabs of granite, on which are etched the name of Miriam and Liam Jones. Killian can’t say anything for a long while, just looks on with an open mouth between Eric and the graves, and then finally leans her head against his shoulder.

 

Eric tells her he never celebrates his birthday, because he was always either alone or in a foster home that didn’t allow for such things—except for that one family, but, of course, they gave him back when they had a baby of their own—but that he always wanted to, and that’s why he always acknowledges it, in small ways, to himself. So, when the appropriate month comes, Killian organizes something at Granny’s, which almost never was, because it required talking to a group of people, half of whom didn’t like her, and the other half she didn’t like, but it’s more than worth it, because of the look that studiously isn’t on his face when twenty townspeople pop out of the diner’s woodwork and yell ‘surprise’ (strange custom, that). He kisses her as soundly as he can in a room full of people and says thank you with his eyes.

 

(In short, David was wrong. Killian hasn’t earned any of this. But he was right, in that it isn’t just her Happy Ending, and the aforementioned was a lie—Eric _does_ have scars. And when he kisses hers, they don’t go away, but they burn less and less and less, and she’ll do the same for him. She couldn’t not. It’s what keeps her here, keeps her selfish, selfish enough to stay.)

 

 

 

FIN

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant as an experimental, introspective, plotless piece, about Rule 63 Killian and the pros and cons of being a pirate, because when I was watching that episode where David calls Killian 'nothing but a pirate', I got ideas when his smirk just dropped after David turned away. Thousands of words later... Anyway. Not sooo horrible for my first dive into the fandom. 
> 
> Concrit is always welcome!
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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